Jorg Jansen

Clear Trust

During my professional career, starting as a junior IT employee at Atos until my business consultant work I’m doing now, one thing I have seen to little is trust. Somehow it seems that trust is something you’ll have to earn and which comes after years of hard work.

Because I work at a lot of different places for my consultancy work, I don’t have time to lose for building trust. I just give trust. Some people find this strange. They come to me and tell me that I shouldn’t just trust this or that employee with that responsibility because he has done this in the past. The question I ask back is: and how do you want to change this person, if we don’t give him a chance?

Two things can happen when you give trust to people: it works out or it doesn’t. If it works out, you’ll have the best supplier, most productive employee, most loyal customer. If it doesn’t work out, you will have to say goodbye.

Problem is that most people find it hard to say goodbye. And there is the trick; don’t make the road to long. You have to be clear that you give trust and what you expect back. For example: ask someone what their work is really about and what they are responsible for at work. They will have a small story to tell, but they don’t always have clear goals written down, which their manager knows about and agrees with.

If you give trust, it must be clear trust. Tell people what you expect of them and what they can expect from you. Write it down, so that you know and more important that the other person knows what you expect.

Two books that helped me a lot with building confidence to give clear trust are ‘The Speed of Trust’ and the ‘One Minute Manager’. Both really recommended reading!